Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1887-03-07
Two ROADS oFrHE soUL.v
= bsence of Restraints Leads to the
Broad and Selfish Road.

Dsence of Restraints Leads to the
Broad and Selfish Road.
NEW YORK, March 5.-The other day
discovered a clergym an better worth re-
porting than most metropolitan ministers
who get into print, aud second enly to
Beeeher or Talmage In originality, inter-
est and eloquence, This was the Rev.
DR.. Charles III. Hall, OF the Church Of the
Holy Trinity, Brooklyn-a magnificent
old gothic pile, unequaled in beauty and
grandeur by any church On Fifth avenue
and only approached in cost by very
few. 1t Is an Episcopal ediice with a
High Church congregation and choir of
on 1.-The Two Roads of the SouP-the
broad one and the straight and narrow
one. HIS idea was that any absence OF
restraint puts us Oh the broad and selfish
road, and he said the WORKOUT roue on
that road would joggle against the pale
and hOllow-eyed Bible student who was
injuring himself by an over-indulgence
In study, as harmful as any other over
Indulgence. But the doctor was most
startling when he came to address the
fashionable ladies who burden their lives
with thoughts of low-necked dresses, pro-
gressive eucbre, balls and dinners.
He said they could profit by the exam
pie OF their kitchen servants, who are
Jealous in their obedience 10 the church,
believe their priests are above the average
of men, and think the Pope great and
wise man, (which l do not" he added.
Even outside their religious duties they
have life work, whose burden they
cheerfully carry, that of saving up from
their hard-earned wages to send over and
bring their relatives here "tO this Paradise
OF Paddles" as he called this country. 1t
struck me that here was clergyman
worth reporting.
The other day | found myself In church
in Montreal. A Sunday morning in the
French Cathedral of Notre Dame in VI on
treal is an experience worth taking, apart
from it's religious benefits. The church
is the biggest in America and is gorge
Gus Imitation, so far as wood and paint
90, of the great Notre Dame in Paris.
But its greatest popularity is its French
congregation. The Frenchman differs
| from the Anglo-SaXOn 10 nothing so much
| as in his noisiness in public gatherings.
| You have heard one person sneeZing In a
| public hall, or you have been interested
in the hacking cough OF nelghbor in
such place. Please imagine 5000 10
| 5000 persons thus engaged. The church
seats 10000 and you quickly get the i'm
| preston that they have been saving up
two things for that Sunday and your spe-
cIal benefit; their colds and their we'd
! ding notices. Hack, cough-cOugh, all
chew, s-s-s-ist is the continual chorus all
around you. Cough-cough. ah-chew,
hack-hack, it goes. Fancy it! literally
| thousands of persons hard at work sniit-
| ing, coughing, sueezing, blowing cornet
| blasts with their noses and clearing their
| throats as if they were planning wood by
steam.
To accentuate the singular melody there
are lulls now and then-but only for an
| instant. In second somebody takes out
his handkerchief and sounds blatant
challenge that sets nearly every man and
woman in the church to doing their ut
most to keep up the noise. 1t is cold
| climate and snuff-taking communicated
then it is just as much the fashion to make
these noises in a French church as it is
the fashion TO repress them in an English
| church. Relief comes when the grand
| organ rolls out its vast volume of rich
melody and the cboristers within the
| chancel rail respond angelIcally to the
| cheru bic tones of the choristers up by the
| organ, a block away in the second gal
| lery. Against such odds the sneezers and
coughers and snitters wisely reserve then
energies, so that when the music ceases
they are found to have new vigor. Then
| once again the challenge is sounded by q
man with the bugleistic nose, and away
they all 90 hack-hack, cough-cough, sniff
| ah-onew.
Not even the piping voice of the assist
ant priest who reads the banns of the be.
J trothed couples Interrupts the bronchial
! refrain. He reads banns and he reads
banns until you think he never will stop;
until you fancy all the single folks In
| Canada are about to wed In order to escape
some brutal English tax on single bless
| edness. encore" he says as he begins
each new announcement, ana you uncon-
| sciOusly find yourself waiting for the con.
tinuing conjunction and counting it each
time it cOmes-3S, 80, 40, Al, and so on,
| until that grows tiresome. "Piere Beton
! son of Jacques BetOn and Marie BetOn,
to El0ise Milard, daughter OF Alphonse
! Milard and Venus Milard, all of st. Con.
stance Parish, second publication. En-
| core: Jean Bertrand, son of Jean Der
| trand and Elise Bertrand, OF Quebec, to
| Blanche Mersoreau, daughter OF Achillt
| Mersoreau and Josephine Mersoreau, o.
| the parish of Notre Dame. Encore" On
and on 1t goes like the rumble of trains
| on the elevated, like the noise OF Broad
| way, like the endless call of a peddler In
the street, only that it never grows faint
er, until at last when you feel that you
dinner has gone and you transfer YOU
| thought TO the prOmptnes5 with whict
! you will appear at supper, the priest says
| in French: "If any one has aught 10 say
| why these weddings should not take place
| let him stand forth and proclaim the rea
son." A thing, by the way, which no ont
] ever does, no matter what they know.
JULIAN RALPH.